It happens sometimes, we perform diagnostics of the website, find loads of errors for the customer, by correcting which you can double the conversion and hear in response: “Well, it was so clear”. Or the other variant… analytics is done, recommendations are accepted and unobjectionable. However, half a year passes, and not a single line is changed on the site, not a button.
Why is it so, and how can we achieve the real results in the process of optimization? Let us try to answer.
Problem #1. I know what to do, how to do … but I don’t do it.
Most often the root of the problem is in one simple concept – it is “not budgeted”. This can be applied both to big corporations and small businesses. Only the scales and content of budgets are individual.
Before the work on site optimization starts (and still better at the stage of its creation) you should understand that:
а) the process of improvements on the site must be permanent. If you want the website to bring money regularly, you must spend them with the same regularity: for personnel salaries, for attracting visitors, for experts’ services. And the more complex system you build the more resources it will require subsequently.
If the task is typical, then inexpensive site template might suit well. It is easy to work with it, and the money you will save can be given to quality attraction and copywriting.
б) improvements require time, including the time of the head of the company. Many executives perceive the website as a showcase of personal achievements, so any change is made only after the detailed agreements. It comes down even to the situation when the executive decides whether the picture should be cropped or it should stay as it is.
Extra coordination prevents the optimization process. The implementer is to decide if the changes are reasonable based on the analytics data, A/B-testing and other tools, more objective than personal taste. A person responsible for internet marketing in the company must have the enough level of authority to bring necessary changes within budget independently.
One more advice: when the time is limited the best variant is “it works alright”. You shouldn’t strive for the ideal if it slows down the website launch or implementation of vital changes. Also you should avoid temporary caps, blank pages and “texts of sorts”. They make an illusion that the tool is available when it is not efficient and steal much time for reworking afterwards.
в) priorities in the company can change, but it is not the reason to put internet-marketing away. It happens: first the company allocates manpower and resources to create internet-presence, and then, before the results appear, switches to a new activity. The work is in full swing with little effect.
At the same time internet-marketing favorably differs from traditional marketing by the fact that when implemented correctly, some necessary actions give a fast and measurable result.
Don’t be lazy to calculate the profit which can bring you, for example, increase of site traffic or more clicks in selling letters from 3,25 to 4,5%. With figures in your hands you will see optimization of internet marketing as a highly profitable investment.
Problem #2. I know what to do, but I don’t know where to start.
One more problem is incorrect prioritization during optimization. Looking at most sites you virtually at once have a number of variants to optimize them – starting from image quality to the forms’ performance. How can the limited resources be distributed among them correctly?
I offer to use Eisenhower matrix. Only instead of criteria Importance/Urgency the tasks should be divided by Importance/Complexity.
“Complexity” in this context means the resources necessary to solve the tasks (time, finance, labor).
Not complicated tasks can be solved in a couple of hours by one person (correction of the texts, planned analytical report, reworking of the form, allocation of images, writing news or posts in the blog etc.).
Complicated tasks suggest allocation of special budget and work with the contractor, collecting a lot of information or long time period from formulation of the problem to implementation.
“Importance” is projected short-term and long-term effects, i.e. the degree of the change of the site conversion by the main target actions after the changes are implemented. Each task included in the complex of important changes automatically becomes important.
As the result each comment on how the website works (regardless what source it came from) can be included in such table.
The tasks of the first and (if possible) the third categories comprise the day-to-day work of the person who is in charge of internet-marketing. The tasks of the second category are included in the project plan for implementation and are additionally detailed and budgeted. The fourth category is for all “wants”, which won’t influence the website conversion but can be interesting for the company in the future.
Problem #3. Something must be done, but what exactly?
The most complicated case. Most often it shows that in the company internet-marketing is conducted intuitively. Here reading more on this topic will help, thankfully, there are myriads of articles and books about internet marketing on the Internet.
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